Tom the Guvnor's Reviews > The Diamond Age

The Diamond Age
by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars or 3/10
Very disappointing. I found it turgid, an almost constant apologia for theoretical Victorian and Confucian conservative ideals quite at odds with the actual story of the female lead, but no dramatic tension or story derived from that. The book is about world views that are clearly anti-liberal but at the same time pro-capitalist, but at the same time doesn't draw out any tension from the fact that his future nano society is still full of appalling poverty. I think an interesting story could well have come from how this society which *could* have everything, doesn't. Why are the most successful societies essentially the 'English-Speaking Peoples'. I found the treatment of various Chinese polities almost random, save that the author clearly spent some time reading up about Confucianism, and most everything else was just 'stuff I read in Boy's Own in 1950 something'. Eveyone else is a cliche from a British Empire upbringing.
If one wanted to write a spiffing tale of a heroine in pantaloons and a cutlass in one hand and a book in another.. then may I suggest the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman?
There is a hint in the very very hidden and obscured storyline about different forms of nano, but that very interesting element, which in the hands of a Banks or Tschaikovsky would have been wonderful, is wasted. I feel this could have been a clever book about a future neo Victorian culture and it's counterpoint with another conservative Confucian culture, and how the future nanotechnologies shape tensions between people, economies and societies. However it needed to be written by someone more savvy than this author at this time.
It just petered out for me.. the last 10% just wound down and abandoned characters and plotlines. The book within a book idea (embedded narrative) is often used with great style by authors. Not here. The way that Stephenson dully repeats transparent tales designed for a 4 year old (eventually they reach 10 year old maybe?) is just dull. We get it, we understand, now either make them interesting or paraphrase them in context.. we are not a young child. I had to drag myself back to reading it over and over again, I almost wish I hadn't bothered.